DdCno1
@DdCno1@beehaw.org
- Comment on Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron 1 day ago:
You can talk to me directly instead of behind my back, you know?
I’m not ignoring the international division of labor. Every country is part of it and every country has been part of it in the past, including Socialist ones.
- Comment on Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron 2 days ago:
I have a hunch you took this personally. Nah, I must be hallucinating.
socialists are even worse than capitalist
Their historic record is considerably worse. I don’t even need to bring up gulags, mass starvation and the abysmal living and human rights conditions of every Socialist regime throughout history to support this point (but it doesn’t hurt).
This does not mean that pure capitalism is fine either (I used to consider myself a smug and enlightened centrist - can you tell?), but it tends to work the best with a fair bit of socialism injected in key areas (social safety net, high taxes on wealth, strong regulations and institutions, robust democratic decision making, lots of economic freedom and high social mobility), as in the Nordic model, which is arguably the best thing humans have come up with so far.
extremely inefficient chip production collapsed Soviet Union economy
I didn’t say that, but it was definitely a strongly contributing factor. I mentioned East Germany in particular, since it spent a fortune on setting up a competitive chip industry to achieve parity with Western and Japanese companies, but failed. The debacle that was their infamous 1 MBit chip, which cost 1 Billion Ostmark to develop (at a time when the country was struggling with high debts it owed to West Germany), but never achieved more than 20% yields in pre-production and was never production-ready illustrates just how hopeless the endeavor was. By the time the chip was in said pre-production state, Japan was already producing 4 MBit chips en masse, at economic yields, of course. I can’t find the numbers on how much of the state budget went into this, but it was a considerable portion, at the cost of everything else. Literally their hail Mary.
Ironically, these investments did pay off in the long run, just not for them: The area where the East German government concentrated its chip production is now known as the German silicon valley. Investments into education and research in particular laid the groundwork for the current and very competitive market-driven chip industry and other IT companies that have settled there.
current-day tech giants as desperate today in attempt to save “their economic system” as Soviet Union and East Germany were in '70s and '80s?
No. Current-day tech giants are in search of something that promises them more perpetual growth in a finite world, where almost all viable technological niches are already saturated. Smartphones are a solved issue: Everyone has settled on glass rectangles with high-res touchscreens, the hardware and software for them is so mature that even ten year old devices are still sufficient today. Gimmicks like foldables are expected to remain fringe. Same with conventional PCs and laptops: Times when a device was obsolete after four years or sooner are long over. Cloud services and virtualization have similarly reached their peak, to the point that there’s a counter movement back towards local IT.
All of this means that easy avenues for more growth are already clogged up, so after some brief excursions into crypto and NFT, earlier and much smaller bubbles, it’s AI with its promise to replace costly human white collar labor with cheaper software that doesn’t talk back, doesn’t form unions or have uppity ideas about redistributing wealth or getting rid of greedy CEOs. Digital slaves, if you will, ideally as intelligent or more intelligent than humans, but without any ability to shape its own destiny. It’s not happening, of course, just as delusional as trying to automate yourself out of the inherent issues of centrally planned economies, but everyone needs to pretend that it might one day, because their livelihoods depend on it. They have invested too much, are in too deep to pull out, are afraid that if one of them does, the house of cards comes crashing down.
I will not pretend that any of this is particularly insightful, but since you appeared to have struggled with the historic parallels, I thought I’d elaborate on each point a little. I hope this doesn’t cause you any additional pain, but if it does, you should be able to deal with it as a strong, rugged Socialist individual used to hardships in service of a better future. No pain, no glorious workers’ and peasants’ revolution, am I right?
- Comment on Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron 2 days ago:
How does a defensive alliance restrict economic systems?
- Comment on Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron 2 days ago:
Given your username and where it’s registered, you will not like the answer, but: Socialists were also notorious for cooking the books to hide their failures, even more so than dirty capitalist pigs. It’s one of the reasons why the system failed.
This doesn’t make the AI bubble okay, of course. I’m only writing this, because your smug comment combined with your user name are particularly ironic.
Another thing: Had LLMs like we have them now been available in the '70s and '80s, the likes of East Germany and the Soviet Union would have been all over them in a desperate bid to save their economic system, just like they tried to with computerized planning and automation back then, wasting ridiculous and economically ruinous amounts of resources on extremely inefficient chip production before they collapsed. In a way, current-day tech giants and the corporate world in general are repeating this mistake in a desperate bid to tasks part in the “next big thing” to get out of the stagnation they found themselves in.
Call it history repeating itself or rhyming - either way, I’m noticing some patterns here.
- Comment on Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50% 1 week ago:
There was also a background check involved, which I forgot to mention. But overall, it’s very much the former and not even close to something like the latter.
- Comment on Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50% 2 weeks ago:
Not even that these days. The good jobs are for people with connections. Those who made it through based on merit are more likely to end up as office drones that can be let go if the CEO wants a higher quarterly bonus to spend on gold trim for his third yacht.
- Comment on Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50% 2 weeks ago:
I was hired during the pandemic and it was quite an interesting experience to get there. They had an online assessment center, several hours (with breaks) of all sorts of quizzes, questions and tasks, mostly intelligence and memory-related, combined with math, general knowledge, language proficiency and a section on personality and personal preferences, with a relatively limited focus on IT questions at the end that felt tacked on for the job. There was no surveillance during it - no webcam requirements or anything. They just sent me a link and I could complete this timed test at a point in time of my choosing, in one go. Since it wasn’t very difficult at all and there was more than enough time, I had no issues with this one.
Before the interview, I was handed a 20 minute condensed version of largely the same type of questions to be completed in person (very small room, alone, under supervision, to eliminate any possibility of cheating), which I completed in no time, and finally an extensive interview (IIRC about 45 minutes) in front of what I can only describe as a tribunal of eight more or less relevant people sitting in a half-circle in front of a chair for the interviewee (at a distance due to COVID), most of which would just silently judge me with their eyes and take down notes as two to three of them switched between interrogating, I mean, interviewing me. They were actually very friendly, but it did feel quite intense. I was extremely nervous in the beginning, even stuttered a little, but as the interview went on, my nerves calmed down. None of the questions were surprising nor upsetting, but due to my initial nervousness, I still felt like I had failed.
Anyway, after they had hired me (I received a call about two weeks later), they later told me that they had done this twice with about 100 applicants each, just to hire a single person. In retrospect, I can’t believe I successfully made it through all of this. I was very well prepared for the interview and had previously spent a lot of effort (several weeks worth) on the application itself, tailoring it to the job and the organization, but still.
If you have the amount of resources this large org has, I think this is a very thorough way of doing things. The simple method of repeating a portion of the test in person (with different questions, but the same kind as online) eliminates cheaters and can be done by an org of virtually any size. The lengthy interview in front of a diverse group I’m not so sure about though. With shy and nervous applicants (as well as those on the spectrum), this can be very overwhelming, but since they all have to find a consensus in the end, discrimination and personal preferences influencing the hiring decision are less likely to happen.
- Comment on The incredible shrinking Xbox: Five studios, 3,200 employees let go 2 weeks ago:
There are multiple reports stating that id software has been hit the hardest, with almost all of their programmers (and many artists) having been laid off.
pushsquare.com/…/legendary-dev-id-software-allege…
It looks like Xbox management doesn’t see the point in id having their own engine anymore, which certainly is a decision.
I’m not sure what to think of future id games being based on Unreal (like Halo and everything else), which is the logical conclusion to this. So much of the studio’s identity is tied to their proprietary engines, which have always been industry-leading.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ 5 weeks ago:
Sure, I don’t think the Xbox 5 will be a success, but it’s highly likely it’ll still ship far more units than the Gabecube, simply because Microsoft is able to shift more units as a larger organization with more presence everywhere (including in the retail space and online stores other than their own).
The difference is that for an organization the size and bloat of Microsoft, numbers that would make Gabe happy would be disastrous for them.
No consumer actually cares about minute differences in performance (or other aspects) between different operating systems and platforms. People buy the platform that has the games and meaningful features they seek, like for example portability, Nintendo’s second-strongest pull after their IPs. Microsoft is hastily trying to claw back their exclusives after a disastrous abandonment of this strategy, which sent margins down the drain. Yes, this will mean that they’ll continue serving the PC, so you can play most of their games on Valve’s devices or any other gaming PC as well, but once more: Normal people buy what’s on the front page on Amazon or on the most illuminated shelf at their local store.
The overwhelming majority don’t even configure their task bar, for crying out loud. Seeing an unmodified one with the big useless search box, spam widget, applications they are never using is one of the quickest reliable indicators that someone is not a tech person.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ 5 weeks ago:
Look at sales of the Steam Deck compared to consoles and your prediction falls flat on its face. Sure, it would be nice in theory, but both the Deck and the Gabecube are very niche devices.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ 5 weeks ago:
It was kind of neat in the beginning, at least in theory - and not just from a consumer perspective: Indies in particular benefited from it, since it raised awareness on their titles in addition to the big bucks from Microsoft coming in:
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ 5 weeks ago:
Based on everything I’ve read, Redfall was pretty much entirely on Arkane, just like, at EA, Anthem was on Bioware’s internal leadership, not publisher meddling. On the contrary, more publisher meddling would have likely made these disasters less likely.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ 5 weeks ago:
Eh, both the Steam Deck and the Gabecube are far too niche and unknown for that. I’ve used the Steam Deck on public transportation and pretty much everyone assumed that it was a Nintendo Switch at first - and I had to go to great length to explain what it was.
One notable exception (out of a small handful) was a mother who recognized it as something different and asked me a ton of questions about it, because she wanted to reward her studious son (who sat next to us wide-eyed, with increasing levels of giddiness) for his great marks with it.
- Comment on Analysts Say Video Game Hardware Isn't Getting Cheaper Anytime Soon 1 month ago:
The number of people doing this is so infinitesimally small that even within the most enthusiast circles, it’s practically unheard of. It’s a footnote of a footnote, at best.
- Comment on GOG apologizes for emailing Nazi runes to its followers 1 month ago:
The S rune is not the only issue. By combination of runes, I meant the whole thing. All of these runes have been used by Nazis and extensively so. While the rune used by the SS is the most well known, this is like a best-of of which runes Heinrich Himmler and modern Nazis are especially fond of.
- Comment on GOG apologizes for emailing Nazi runes to its followers 1 month ago:
Holy hell, this does not look like an accident. This combination of runes does not just happen. Whoever did this at the company thought they could get away with it.
- Comment on Searching for 'Disregard' Breaks Google AI overviews; Similar command phrases, including "ignore," "quit," "skip," and "stop,"; "look" and "forget" are also prompting chatbot-like responses. 1 month ago:
Google claims they do. During their last presentation, they boasted about billions of users of their AI. The sheer gall of these people!
- Comment on SHL0MS(famous prankster on X/Twitter) baited AI haters by posting a real painting by Monet, claiming it was AI generated. The post got viral(>6M views) as art critics started deleting their replies 2 months ago:
The vast majority of people are unaware of the existence of such tools.
- Comment on A million baby monitors and security cameras were easily viewable by hackers 2 months ago:
About 16, 17 years ago, I was briefly obsessed with browsing freely accessible webcams on the Internet. Most were surveillance cameras outside of businesses (some even with motorized controls!) and it was fun to explore the world that way: I saw sunrises in the Arctic Circle, busy Asian city streets, lots of interesting everyday moments from around the globe. Just harmless fun, right?
However, two cameras I stumbled upon made me stop this entirely: One was from an office in Russia, a hidden camera placed under a desk shared by several young women wearing short skirts. The other (thus the connection to the title) was a camera inside someone’s home, right above a baby sleeping in their crib. In fact, the entire house, every single room, was covered in cameras, all of them accessible to the world. I felt like the worst creep, even though I found both completely by accident.
- Comment on OpenAI shelves Stargate UK in blow to Britain’s AI ambitions 3 months ago:
Maybe they should ask their AI for ideas on how to make money.
By the way: Why are AI companies still on a hiring spree while at the same time peddling AI as a replacement of high-skill white collar jobs, like software engineering?
- Comment on Linux kernel maintainers are following through on removing Intel 486 support 3 months ago:
Sometimes, the issue is certification, e.g. for aerospace and medical applications - although these systems tend to run on decades-old software anyway (since changes to the software also need to be certified, which rarely happens), so it’s not like this has an actual impact.
- Comment on Men Are Buying Hacking Tools to Use Against Their Wives and Friends 3 months ago:
Decreasing friction is a problem though. In the past, you needed at least some basic skills to e.g. photoshop a compromising photo of someone (and quite a lot of experience to do so convincingly), whereas current AI tools can do this far better with no skills required.
- Comment on Used EV sales spike alongside gas prices 3 months ago:
A relative of mine switched to a BEV - KGM Torres EVX, a bargain from South Korea with 462 km (287 mi) WLTP range, which he regularly exceeds - after years of driving plug-in hybrids from Mitsubishi just a few months ago. He obviously could not be happier, given current gas prices (except that the driver’s seat holds up exactly as poorly as on the Mitsubishis). He does not have a wall box, by the way: All of his charging is done through public chargers and a slow wall outlet at work. At between €28 and 36 per full recharge, it’s a very cheap car to drive.
Even when he was driving his prior hybrids, he was barely ever using the internal combustion engine - to the point that the car would occasionally warn him to refresh the gas in the tank - since he was doing almost all of his driving in EV-mode.
- Comment on Journalists convinced a AI Vending Machine Things to give them free stuff like a PS5 6 months ago:
Reminds me of iOS users (who tend to be financially better off) getting charged more than Android users. Random recent-ish examples, but this goes way back:
timelinedaily.com/…/ride-hailing-apps-charge-ipho…
- Comment on Five years from launch the PS5 is a roaring success, so why doesn't it feel like it? [Eurogamer] 8 months ago:
Expedition 33
I haven’t tried this game on the Deck yet, so I can’t confirm these work, but have you looked at how other people have achieved 30 fps on protondb?
www.protondb.com/app/1903340?device=steamDeck
Another option would be to lower difficulty, if you haven’t already. IIRC, the parry window is much wider on easy.
The friends we asked also gave split opinions
Classic too many cooks problem. Best stick to one person who seems like they know what they are talking about. Don’t look at me, I’m just pretending. ;)
but I’m not sure about ventilation then
The more, the merrier. Map out a clear path for the air to travel through the device, from the least hot to the hottest component and out again. Larger fans are quieter at the same amount of air moved than smaller ones. Cable management gets more important the smaller the case is, so make sure to pick a modular power supply and tuck everything that can be tucked away neatly out of sight and out of the way of the airflow.
Without SteamOS it seems I’d need a keyboard/mouse out for every boot too.
You can configure Steam to immediately launch in Big Picture mode on any operating system it supports. There are many ways of achieving this, but here’s a simple script for Windows:
For couch PC gaming, I would also recommend getting one of these cheap and simple little keyboard and mouse remotes (I have amassed several over the years, for some reason).
I’m also not knowledgable about specs, but I figured when, say, Borderlands 4 is not playable at 4K 60fps, then I could just deal with Full HD 30-40fps, which would be enough.
I would recommend waiting until it’s out and people have thoroughly tested it. Within a few days of it reaching the hands of customers, there should be plenty of videos, articles and forum reports on how well it performs with all sorts of games, including particularly demanding ones like Borderlands 4. Digital Foundry are the best address for this kind of performance analysis.
The closest solution is PS5 Pro or PS6 when it comes out (and they fit on shelf, never checked size)
The PS5 (Pro or not) is absolutely humongous. I would be surprised if the PS6 ends up being any smaller. It’ll probably fit onto your shelf, but not in it.
but, no Steam library then. Or mods, emulation. All in all, it seems I’m in an extremely specific situation where buying SM seems optimal.
Looks like it. This computer will undoubtedly be an emulation powerhouse, just like the Deck. If the price is right and if it doesn’t have any teething issues at launch (which I doubt, given how mature the Deck was right away), then it might just be the ideal PC for you. If it’s pricier than expected for the performance, then you might want to return to me and we can discuss a SFF build as an alternative, if you want.
One thing I would recommend is buying the base model and upgrading storage yourself, since this is likely where Valve will charge more than what it would cost to perform the upgrade yourself. There are no other spec differences between the models and it’s likely that they’ll sell the base model close to cost, like the Deck. Based on what I’ve seen, upgrading storage should be trivially easy, far easier than on the Deck.
- Comment on Five years from launch the PS5 is a roaring success, so why doesn't it feel like it? [Eurogamer] 8 months ago:
Which games are you struggling with on the Deck?
What kind of issues did your friend have building a PC? It’s a rather straightforward process, really. You can make mistakes, of course, but if you prepare your build carefully, maybe get a second or third opinion from people with experience and knowledge, read a tutorial or two, then few things can really go wrong. I’m willing to help with the selection of components and some tips on the building process, if you want (I’ve been building PCs for decades, if that counts).
I get the appeal of the “Gabecube” (I hope this name sticks) for you though, but keep in mind that it is a relatively limited system in terms of power, quite a bit below current-gen consoles by current estimates and especially limited by its relatively small amount of VRAM. It should be able to play every Linux-compatible game for now (the most demanding at low settings only), but sooner or later, the limited GPU (which can not be upgraded, unlike on a normal PC), will result in games just not running well enough or not even booting, similar to certain newer games on the Deck. It is considerably more powerful than the Deck though.
It really depends on the price whether or not it’s a good low-end gaming PC. Hardware prices are not exactly ideal at the moment (RAM is the current sticking point, but GPUs aren’t cheap either), so if the Deck manages to be more affordable than a comparable budget build - kind of like the base-model Steam Deck has been a very impressive value proposition - it might be worth it.
- Comment on Five years from launch the PS5 is a roaring success, so why doesn't it feel like it? [Eurogamer] 8 months ago:
There are games, but few exclusives (just 18 the last time I checked). If you want to play modern games and don’t want a PC, it’s fine for that, without really being special in any way. It is a difficult value proposition for owners of the previous gen, since the jump in visual fidelity is much smaller than between prior generations (an inevitability that isn’t Sony’s fault) and since the previous generation is still being at least partially supported and was strongly supported for a very long time. However, over time, most have clearly made the jump and with the release of GTA VI (timed exclusive for PS), the system will see another significant boost.
Mods are not really a factor on consoles. Very few console gamers care about them. Xbox has slightly better support with fewer restrictions, but there are only a handful of games with support (mainly Bethesda RPGs). It clearly hasn’t helped the competition from Redmond.
- Comment on Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it' 10 months ago:
Both games released and even the N64 port of Daikatana is more fun on original hardware than Star Citizen ever will be.
- Comment on Tech CEOs Praise Donald Trump at White House Dinner 10 months ago:
Sure, but what play is being performed here? These men are more than powerful enough to go against Trump, yet every single one of them is playing the part of the obedient subject to the mighty king. The message of this bizarre play is that Trump is in charge, that he demands, in return of leaving you and your business alone, acts of what can only be described as public debasement.
That’s unsettling for a long list of reasons.
- Comment on An OpenAI whistleblower was found dead in his apartment. Now his mother wants answers 1 year ago:
It can mean that, but it’s also possible that he already had psychological issues. While the entire thing stinks and my first instinct is to assume foul play as well, it’s still important not to jump to conclusions. The reason is simple: If there’s a real case of corporate murder, then people will take it less seriously due to past conspiracy theories.
